


Meet Me On the River (Yuuri and Viktor)

by A_WhitneyWhite, RamseyH



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 06:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11307195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_WhitneyWhite/pseuds/A_WhitneyWhite, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RamseyH/pseuds/RamseyH
Summary: This is a collaborative work of three fanfics and art from the same Yuuri on Ice alternate universe, set on a Mississippi riverboat in the 1920s. The story below features Yuuri and Viktor.You can follow me on Twitterhere!The art for this story ishere.Otabek and Yurio’s story can be foundhere. Arthere.Sara and Mila’s story ishere. Arthere.Enjoy!





	Meet Me On the River (Yuuri and Viktor)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collaborative work of three fanfics and art from the same Yuuri on Ice alternate universe, set on a Mississippi riverboat in the 1920s. The story below features Yuuri and Viktor.
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/RamseyHootman)!
> 
> The art for this story is [here](https://twitter.com/chzyshenanigans/status/875483763773460482). 
> 
> Otabek and Yurio’s story can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11205435). Art [here](https://twitter.com/chzyshenanigans/status/875483763773460482).
> 
> Sara and Mila’s story is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11210568/chapters/25041972). Art [here](https://twitter.com/vanro_marand/status/875471811571585025/photo/1).
> 
> Enjoy!

“Quit playing that depressing Russian crap!”  
  
Yuuri ducked as the empty bottle flew past his nose, then turned to glare at Yurio, polishing his trumpet at the bar. “You’re Russian. How can you not like this?” He ruffled the sheet music, so well-worn the stiff paper felt like cloth. “Or did you forget that you’re the one who introduced me to Nikiforov in the first place?”  
  
“Maybe if you didn’t drive us all crazy by playing it fifty times a day!” Yurio slammed the case closed on his beloved instrument, yanked it off the bar, and stalked away, muttering to himself.  
  
Yuuri’s mother bustled out of the kitchen, tut-tutting as she wiped down the section of the bar that Yurio had just vacated. It was a pointless exercise—the bar had been scratched beyond repair after decades of use—but one so ingrained by habit that she couldn’t stop. She squinted across the ballroom at Yuuri. “Passengers are boarding,” she said.  
  
That was her polite way of agreeing with Yurio: both she and Papa had decided the Russian music should be reserved for times when they didn’t have guests on board. Paying customers needed to be kept well-fed, well-attended, and most of all, happy. Otherwise they were much less inclined to part with their money. Nobody wanted the passengers getting all teary and sentimental.  
  
Yuuri closed the fallboard with a sigh. He collected his small stack of sheet music, cradling it carefully under one arm, and headed downstairs to his room.  
  
#  
  
“Look at that one.” Yurio pointed to the gangplank below. “Thinks he’s so manly. Arm around that woman. But every time he looks away—” Yurio spat. His spittle sailed out over three decks and hit the water with a faint plop. He laughed. “Woman makes eyes at that dock hand.”  
  
“What about that one?” Yuuri nodded to the last of the passengers shuffling slowly up the gangplank. “He looks interesting.”  
  
Different, in any case. The other passengers boarding the paddle steamer were all well-heeled, but they’d surrendered fashion to comfort in the heat of the midday Mississippi sun. They came two-by-two, mostly, with a couple of larger groups and a loner here and there. All had ties loosened, jackets slung over shoulders, hats in hand. The women blocked the sun with parasols, paper fans flapping against bosoms. All except the man at the end of the line.  
  
He was tall and slender, but broad-shouldered. His perfectly ironed suit—gray so light it was nearly white—was buttoned up the front. A broad brimmed hat of the same color was pulled low on his brow, shading his face from the sun. A white-gloved hand gripped the hilt of a cane that appeared decorative more than functional. With his other hand, he carried a black leather valise. Heavy, from the look of it.  
  
As they watched, a dock boy ran up to the man, pointing to the bag. Doubtless offering to carry it on board for a small fee. The man looked up as he shook his head, and Yuuri glimpsed a flash of skin as pale as milk. He held out his own hand, sun-browned and rough.  
  
Next to him, Yurio sucked on his teeth, thoughtfully. “Mm. Hiding something, that one. I can tell.” He straightened, stretching like a cat, and then left, swinging his small, lithe form over the railing of the circular staircase and riding the bannister down.  
  
#  
  
They always had a party the first night, after they pushed off and all the passengers had a chance to unpack and rest a while, away from the heat of the afternoon sun. Of course, that meant Yuuri spent the afternoon rushing around from one cabin to the next, collecting dirty laundry, bringing carafes of cool water, and answering the same thousand and one questions the guests asked every single cruise.  
  
He was rushing, breathless, when he finally made it to the grand saloon. The floor was already crowded with passengers, and a few of the boat boys were running around between tables, serving root beer and lemonade.  
  
“Nice of you to show up,” Yurio said. “You look like a sweating pig.”  
  
Yuuri grabbed a hand-towel, feeling himself flush with a mixture of anger and embarrassment as he wiped his face and the back of his neck and shrugged into his black suit jacket. “Some of us have to work for a living.”  
  
“This is living?” Yurio scoffed. “Come on. Let’s play.”  
  
The band walked out on the low stage together, a march coordinated not so much by intention as habit. Yuuri nodded to the crowd, without really looking at them, before seating himself at the piano bench. Yurio belted out a couple of well-rehearsed sentences of welcome, and then they launched into When my Baby Smiles at Me.  
  
After that came Avalon, and then Margie. It was what everyone wanted—expected, even—and soon the tables were pushed back against the walls to make room for dancing. Yuuri knew it all by heart, of course—they all did—but he still got swept away in the notes. He knew when to pound the keys, when to hold back, tapering off so Yurio could step forward and let his trumpet carry the melody. Even if they couldn’t agree on composers, they could always come together to make the music happen.  
  
About an hour in, they segued into a set which allowed each of them to take a break—Yurio took a back seat on the first song, and the second one JJ stepped forward to show off his pipes while Yuuri sat out, taking the couple of minutes he was afforded to rearrange his sheet music, adjust his seat, and drink some water.  
  
It was then that he felt it: someone watching him. The lights were bright in the saloon, blinding him to almost anything that wasn’t onstage. All he could really see were bodies in motion, a blur of light and color.  
  
And then: a snippet of conversation, a familiar accent. Like Yurio’s, but… smoother. He squinted, seeking the source of the voice in the tables on the right. A red-haired woman stepped between tables, blocking a lantern for a moment, and in that flash of dark he met the cool, piercing eyes of the man in gray.  
  
And then JJ’s ballad ended, and Yuuri was up again.  
  
#  
  
This was always Yuuri’s favorite part of the evening: the performance was over, but the passengers still lingered in the hall, filling it with laughter and conversation. He stowed his sheet music in the piano bench, hung his jacket up behind the stage, and took a bottle of homemade root beer out to the back of the boat. It was empty here, a bit chilly in the moonlit shadow of the huge paddlewheel, flushing up a spray of faintly mossy-smelling water as it churned a steady rhythm.  
  
The lights blazing inside the hall magnified the quiet outside; the flat black water, the immensity of the heavens speckled with stars. It felt as though he were watching the boat from far away, the tinny laughter and blazing lanterns condensed to a pinpoint of light in the dark night.  
  
He closed his eyes and breathed the cool night air, letting his fingers tap a silent melody on the railing. This: the texture of the night, was what he felt in Nikiforov’s songs.  
  
“Ah. Little boat boy. Here you are.”  
  
Yuuri snapped to attention, whirling to face—  
  
The man in gray held out a champagne flute. “My glass is empty.”  
  
“I—you—” Yuuri felt himself flush, but service was a habit so deeply ingrained that he reached for the glass without thinking. “I will, uh, I—”  
  
The long, slender gloved fingers made a shooing motion. “I’ll wait here.”  
  
“What did you—what were you, uh—”  
  
“Root beer. Unless you have something stronger?”  
  
Yuuri didn’t know what to say, so he just ducked a quick bow and hurried, as fast as he could without breaking into a run, toward the kitchen.  
  
“Yuuri, sweetie!” His mother said. “Is everything all right?”  
  
“Takeshi.” Yuuri sucked in a breath. “Where is Takeshi?” Everyone knew Takeshi kept a bucket of moonshine in his cabin. He was supposed to be in the kitchen at this hour.  
  
“I told him to take the rest of the evening off.” His mother looked concerned. “Sweetie, if something’s happened, you know you can always—”  
  
“Thanks Mom. Never mind.” Running around the boat to fulfill the elegant stranger’s wish for something fermented wasn’t worth the risk that said elegant stranger might get bored and wander off. Yuuri didn’t know the first thing about the man, but the way he carried himself suggested a certain… flightiness. Or perhaps Yuuri was being overly paranoid. He grabbed a carafe of his father’s home-brewed root beer from the ice box and poured.  
  
He hurried back to the deck, again at a not-quite-run, this time for fear of spilling the beverage. Though he couldn’t have said quite why, his heart surged into his throat at the sight of the man’s backside—his spine as long and slender as his fingers. He rested his elbows on the railing, gazing out into the Mississippi river night.  
  
“Ah.” He turned as Yuuri approached, stretching out an arm for the glass. He held it up for a moment, examining the dark liquid in the lamplight before touching it to his lips. “Hm. Not the good stuff.”  
  
Yuuri cringed. “I’m sorry, I—”  
  
“And yet,” the stranger went on, as though Yuuri had not even spoken. “Hm. Yes.” He took another sip. “Certainly… unique. Not unlike…” His gaze lingered over the frothy beer until, quite suddenly, he looked Yuuri directly in the eye. His eyebrow slid up. “A certain piano player’s performance.”  
  
Yuuri couldn’t move. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears, knew his face must be bright red, but he could not look away. He wasn’t even sure what the man was saying, exactly. Was this a criticism of his performance this evening? He swallowed, thickly. “I, um. Sorry. What?”  
  
“Your staccatos are lazy. You tread the pedals like your soles are made of lead. Your posture is repulsive. I cannot tell—are you a piano player or a hunchback?”  
  
“Oh,” said Yuuri.  
  
“And yet there is a certain…” He frowned into the root beer, lip curling in slight distaste. “Something.”  
  
“Some… thing?”  
  
“Mm.” The stranger turned his back on Yuuri, leaning both elbows on the railing. “Yes.”  
  
Yuuri waited. The stranger looked out at the water, sipping at his root beer, humming a tuneless song. Was that it, then? A cutting critique, and then—dismissed? He took a step backward. “I had better get back to—”  
  
“Tell me,” the stranger said. He looked over his shoulder at Yuuri, tossing his head slightly to clear the hair from his cool blue eyes. “Why do you play songs you do not love?”  
  
Yuuri was so caught off guard that he answered, simply, with the truth: “They’re what everyone else wants.”  
  
“And you, boat boy? What do you want? To spend your life on the edge of the water, playing songs no one can hear?”  
  
Yuuri tried to hold the man’s gaze, but he could not. He blushed and looked away. The man had seen him, playing on the railing like a child.  
  
The man straightened, which Yuuri saw only by observing the movements of his immaculately polished shoes. He stepped forward once, twice—three more times, until his toes were mere inches from Yuuri’s. His hands held the champagne flute, empty now, and he pushed the glass into Yuuri’s hands.  
  
He was tall, but so close Yuuri could feel the man’s breath on his forehead, when he spoke:  
  
“Tomorrow you will be better.”  
  
#  
  
Yuuri was not better. The notes wouldn’t stay in their places on the page. Not that he needed them—he knew all the songs by heart. And yet he couldn’t get through more than a couple of stanzas without tripping over his own fingers. He was a raw, exposed nerve. A vibrating piano string.  
  
Yurio called the break early, after only three songs. He grabbed Yuuri by his collar and dragged him off stage. “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you fry your brain out in the sun?”  
Yuuri took a gulp of water. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just—” He couldn’t stop himself from looking out into the audience. The man in gray was seated at a table next to the stage. He was laughing and talking with other guests, to all appearances completely carefree. But Yuuri had felt his eyes on him from the moment the show began.  
  
“That old Russian fart?” Yurio slapped him on the back of the head. “I’m the only Russian you should be afraid of. Get your head on straight, idiot.”  
  
Yuuri didn’t manage that, but he did manage to finish out the evening’s performance. Back hunched, feet stomping on the pedals, staccatos running together like hot wax. Every note was off tempo. When it was over, finally, he didn’t stay to bow and enjoy what was clearly very unearned applause. He stumbled off the stage, down the deck, and plunged into the bowels of the steamer, down to the closet-sized cabin he called his own.  
  
Only then did the tears come, hot and large.  
  
He had never aspired to greatness. He had been happy, here, with his family, on this boat. Playing the piano. Not always the songs he wanted, but they were good songs, and it was fun and made him happy. He’d never dreamed of running off and playing professionally. What could greatness offer that he didn’t have here?  
  
Yet this man whose name he didn’t even know had stepped onto his boat, spoken half a dozen sentences, and suddenly Yuuri wanted to be the best.  
And knew, with absolute certainty, that he was not.  
  
#  
  
When he woke, his eyes were puffy and swollen. His mouth tasted like cotton. It was a new day, just like all the others, spent running around delivering food, cleaning cabins, and generally making himself useful. His family depended upon him.  
  
He wanted to give up—to ignore this beautiful stranger and return to his life of happy mediocrity. He also burned with anger. How dare he? How dare this man waltz in here, act like he knew everything, and dare to judge Yuuri? Had he even asked for it? No.  
  
He pulled on his rumpled, threadbare uniform, so short his ankles showed, and plodded barefoot up to the main deck. He’d tell his mother he didn’t want to play anymore. She’d be dismayed, but mostly because she worried about him. If he genuinely wanted to quit—if it would make him happier not to play—she would accept that. They would find someone else to do the job.  
  
But he didn’t turn toward the store room, where she was usually found at this early hour. Instead he found himself walking back toward the grand salon. It was deserted; everyone stayed up late into the cool night and slept as long as they could manage in hopes of avoiding the midmorning heat.  
  
He pulled the curtains shut around the stage, closed the lid, and put a brick on the una corda, the left pedal, to dampen the sound. Someone walking by on the deck might catch a note or two, but no more.  
  
Then he opened the fall board, drew in a deep breath, and played.  
  
Spine straight. Feet light. Fingers soft and quick. At first it seemed impossible to keep it all together at once—he straightened, and fumbled a note. Remembered the note but stomped too hard on the pedal. He felt like an incompetent novice.  
  
But he didn’t stop. He would not stop. No more jazz, no more ragtime, no swing.  
  
He played Beethoven. Wagner.  
  
Nikiforov.  
  
And somewhere along the way, Yuuri disappeared. There was only the keys, the pedals… the music. As he played, it was almost as if an invisible hand ran a finger up his spine, raising the hair on the back of his neck. Palms touched his shoulders, adjusting them slightly, and then moved down his arms. Guiding him, deftly, with the softest touch. He leaned into it, relaxing into the embrace of the music.  
  
The song ended, and he let out a long breath he hadn’t known he was holding.  
  
“Mm. Yes. Much better.”  
  
“Wha—” Yuuri spun, lurching back against the keyboard. The piano let out a discordant thrum. “You—” Not his imagination. The man in gray. Had been—and he had—  
  
“But what is it about your playing? I still cannot tell.” The man was tugging his gloves back over fingers so perfect they might have been carved out of stone. “You certainly have an amateur’s lack of grace. The purity of inexperience.” He put one gloved finger to his chin, pensive amusement shining at the corners of his eyes. “What do you think, Yuuri?”  
  
Yuuri felt the blush climb from his collar, up his cheeks, and into his ears. “I—I don’t know.” He slid to the end of the bench—and then tumbled off the end. His back end had barely hit the ground before he was scrambling back, away. He managed, somehow, to stumble to his feet.  
  
He ran out onto the deck. But the only place the deck went was in a circle, right back to where he’d begun. And so he did the only thing he could think of: he dove over the side and swam.  
  
#  
  
“I heard you took a dunk in the river this morning,” Yurio said, when Yuuri came to the stage that night. “Hope it cleared your head, because if you screw up tonight I’m gonna stick this somewhere you won’t like.” He waved his trumped suggestively.  
  
Yuuri ignored him. He took a seat at the piano, arranged his music, and took a deep breath. Then he closed his eyes, and imagined the finger traveling up his spine. Lingering, for a moment, at the nape of his neck.  
  
And he was better. Not brilliant, but better.  
  
He looked for the man in gray, afterward—pretending he was only casually scanning the room—but he was nowhere to be seen.  
  
#  
  
“I caught the end of your set last night,” his mother said, the next morning. She squinted up at him through the steam rising from a pan of sizzling freshwater shrimp. “Very good, Yuuri. Your father and I are so proud of you.” Then she bustled around the counter, wiping her hands on her apron, and shoved a tray into his arms. “Room Fourteen.” Her eyebrows went up. “He requested you.”  
  
“Me…?”  
  
“I think you made an impression.” His mother shrugged and turned back to her cooking.  
  
Yuuri’s heart was in his throat as he carried the tray out of the kitchen and down the narrow hall leading to the passenger staterooms. Room Fourteen was one of the many standard-fare rooms, suitable for either single or double occupancy. He hadn’t paid attention to the log, so he had no idea who was staying here.  
  
But when he shifted the tray to one arm and rapped on the cabin door, he was not at all surprised to hear “Come!” in a very familiar voice.  
  
Yuuri turned the knob, then shifted the tray back to both hands and backed through the doorway. “Your breakfa—oh. Ex—excuse me.”  
  
The man in gray was no longer in gray, at least from the waist up. He was bent over the cabin’s wash basin, using his hands to splash his face with water. “Hm?” He straightened slightly, glancing at Yuuri over one lean, muscular shoulder. “Ah. Yes. Thank you.” He nodded to the table wedged in between the bed and the basin. “There.”  
  
Yuuri swallowed and ducked a nod. He put the tray down, praying the man didn’t notice the nervous rattle, and turned to make his escape.  
  
That was not what happened. What happened, in fact, was that his foot got caught in the shirt the man had tossed onto the floor, and he tripped. He put his hands out to break his fall just as the man turned, patting his face dry with a hand towel. Yuuri’s hands flew past the man, one on either side—and Yuuri planted his face dead-center on the man’s chest. The man’s very firm, very white, very muscular chest.  
  
The man laughed. The sound was carefree and almost… delighted? He gripped Yuuri under an arm with his long, angular fingers and lifted him back to his feet.  
Yuuri mumbled an apology, but the sentence was incoherent even to him.  
  
The man tossed back the coverlet and took a casual seat on the edge of the bed, reaching for a slice of bacon. “Have some toast?” he offered. “Tell me everything about yourself.”  
  
“I—I don’t think that’s—I mean, I don’t think I should—” Yuuri paused, swallowing, and finally blurted: “I don’t even know who you are!”  
  
The man laughed again. Yuuri had never been so embarrassed in his life, but it didn’t matter. Whatever it took, he wanted that laugh to happen again. Over and over again.  
  
“Am I too forward? Please excuse me. Customs are so different here, I am not always sure.” This time, he offered his hand. His eyes softened. “Viktor.”  
  
“Oh,” said Yuuri. Viktor? Surely not _the_ Viktor. No; of course not. Yurio would have laughed in his face at the suggestion. Viktor was a common name. Even amongst Russians. Russians who knew something of piano playing—  
  
“And you?” Viktor’s head was tilted to one side. His eyes were laughing, which was almost as good as hearing it in his voice. “Or does everyone call you boat boy?”  
  
Yuuri straightened; he did, after all, have a little self-respect. For the sake of his family. For their boat. “Yuuri.” He made a short, shallow bow. “Yuuri Katsuki.”  
  
“Pleased to meet you, boat boy Yuuri.” Viktor gestured to the little folding chair next to the table. “Now. Will you have toast with me?”  
  
Viktor had not been joking when he asked Yuuri to tell him everything about himself. There was not much to share—his parents had migrated to St. Louis before he was born, he had grown up on this boat, and the river was his world—but somehow Yuuri came out of the cabin an hour later having spoken only about himself. He knew no more about Viktor now than he had going in. Unless you counted Viktor’s laugh.  
  
“Boat boy Yuuri,” Viktor called, as Yuuri turned to close the cabin door.  
  
Yuuri hesitated, hand on the knob. “Yes?”  
  
“Would you like to be a better piano player?”  
  
He swallowed. “Yes.”  
  
“Would you like to be the best?”  
  
#  
  
And so it was: every morning, while the rest of the boat was still abed, Yuuri sat before the keys and closed his eyes. Sometimes Viktor was there—touching an elbow, murmuring a word—and sometimes he was not.  
  
Yuuri felt himself getting better. No; not quite that. It was as though the knowledge, the skill, had been locked somewhere inside, and Viktor possessed the key. He had simply released the Yuuri that had always been.  
  
At night, his progress did not go unnoticed. He played with confidence and poise; often, JJ would step back, holding out a hand to signal Yuuri for a solo. One night, even Yurio gave him the nod to play.  
  
And afterward, always: Viktor, with two glasses of root beer, waiting at the stern.  
  
Four days passed; it felt like a lifetime. As though they had always done this, and always would. Until the night Viktor greeted him with a sly, triumphant smile.  
  
“What is it?” Yuuri asked. “You look like the cat that got the mouse.”  
  
Viktor waited until Yuuri had taken a long drink of root beer before declaring, proudly, “I’ve found it.”  
  
“Found… what?” Yuuri looked around, confused.  
  
Viktor laughed. “Your secret.”  
  
“My secret? I don’t—”  
  
Viktor put a hand out, using an index finger to tap the frame of the paddle wheel. Its more-or-less steady rhythm as it churned the water. “This.”  
  
“I don’t understand.” Yuuri’s stomach contracted, twisting into a tight fist of dread.  
  
“Come here.” Viktor took Yuuri’s hand and pressed it against the frame. “Don’t you feel it? All this time, I’ve been watching you, trying to figure out—what is that spark? Why is it that I can’t stop listening to this sunburned boat boy pound his fists on the keys?” He turned, grinning, and tossed his glass over the side of the boat.  
  
Yuuri’s eyes followed the glass, dismayed. “My mother’s going to—”  
  
Viktor seized him by the shoulders, bending close until they were eye to eye. “The boat is your metronome, Yuuri. This paddle wheel. But it’s not like other metronomes. This river, this boat—the rhythm is not constant. It’s steady, but the minute variations—it’s why your playing feels so organic, Yuuri. You were born to this.” He put a hand flat on Yuuri’s chest. “You feel it. In here.”  
  
Yuuri closed his eyes. He listened to the paddle wheel, with its steady whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. He heard it with his ears, but Viktor was right. He didn’t just hear it. He felt it—the faint reverberation moving up through the deck, into his feet. His breath, his pulse, his very heartbeat—all synchronized with that vast turning wheel.  
  
He opened his eyes, and before he knew what was happening, Viktor had snatched the glass from his hand and hurled it out into the water. It sank with a short plop. “I will buy your mother ten glasses better than that one,” Viktor said, when he saw Yuuri’s face. He draped an arm around his shoulders, steering him down the port side of the deck. “Yuuri. My boat boy. You know why I booked this trip? Me, traveling alone? I thought I was done, Yuuri. I thought I had seen everything. Inside—” He thumped his chest lightly. “Inside I was dry. And now—” He gestured, trying to describe with an elegant arc of his arm that which could not be put into words. “Now, Yuuri. Here is something new.”

“It just seems… normal, to me,” Yuuri admitted.

Viktor laughed. A light, silvery laugh of childish delight. “Tell me something, boat boy.” He stopped, turning Yuuri to face him. “Can you get us some of the good stuff?”

#

They kicked off their shoes and dangled their feet over the edge of the boat, laughing and talking about everything and nothing at all. As night turned into early morning, Viktor’s jacket came off, and then his gloves and tie. He shed the last vestiges of formality when he unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.

“Look at us,” he said. “Two boat boys on the river.” He draped his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders—and shoved him in.

Yuuri came up sputtering, but he’d grown up in the water. Before Viktor could move, Yuuri had his foot in both hands and pulled.

When the horizon began to turn a pale shade of purple, they climbed back onto the deck, rolling onto their backs to watch the stars wink out, one by one.

“I never knew life could be like this,” Viktor said.

“Poor and dirty?” Yuuri used his shirt to wipe the film of river water off his face.

“Free.”

#

“Hey. Quit lollygagging. Your mom’s looking for you.”

“Ow!” Yuuri grabbed the side of his head as Yurio landed another soft-toed kick. “What the—”

He had fallen asleep on deck. He sat up, and his shirt—now dry—fell away from his bare chest. Viktor, he realized, must have draped it over him.

Yuuri scrambled to his feet, his body choosing this moment to very suddenly object to the hard wooden planks it had been sleeping on. He hobbled around in a circle, hopping from one foot to the other as he put his shoes on.

“Enjoy the sunburn,” Yurio said, and sauntered off.

It was midmorning—almost noon, really—and Yuuri spent the afternoon rushing around the boat, trying to catch up with all the work he’d neglected while sleeping. By evening his face was bright red, and not because he was blushing. There wasn’t a single person who worked on the boat, it seemed, who didn’t have some smart comment to offer on the river boy who had sunburned his own face. It was one thing when it happened to a passenger—quite another when it was one of their own.

He didn’t rise to the bait. He kept his head down, thinking only of tonight.

Tonight he would play his best. And then, after—well, fortunately he had a sunburn, so nobody could see him blush.

#

Viktor didn’t come.

Yuuri craned his neck around, squinting into the lights, searching the crowd for him every time he finished a song. But he was not there. Well; that had happened before. He would be at the stern, then.

Waiting. He always had been.

But he was not.

Yuuri waited for well over an hour before giving up and turning in for the night. Perhaps it had been their nighttime swim—Yuuri was still exhausted, so perhaps Viktor was sleeping it off. Had he been sunburned, too? He was vain enough that a little red on his face might keep him from exposing himself to a crowd.

He would be there in the morning, surely, hovering behind Yuuri as he practiced.

But he was not.

Yuuri practiced anyway, in hope.

When he was done, he hurried to the kitchen and assembled a tray: water, lemonade, a selection of bread and meats and cheeses. “Mom,” he called, “do you still have some of your salve?”

“Of course, sweetie.” His mother opened a cabinet, rummaged around in the back, and handed him a battered tin can. Inside was her homemade sunburn remedy. “Do you want me to put it on?”

“Thanks, mom. I got it.” He added the can to the tray and rushed out before she could wonder why he was delivering food nobody had ordered.

Viktor’s door had a sign hanging on the knob. There was one in every cabin. It said, in bright red letters: DO NOT DISTURB. Yuuri sighed. But he crept closer anyway, hoping that perhaps Viktor, inside, would hear, wake, and…

“Leave it in the hall!” Viktor’s shout came muffled, through the door.

He was not sleeping, then. Yuuri put the tray down on the floor outside Viktor’s room, but he did not immediately leave. He listened. There was rustling from inside, almost furious, and a low muttering from Viktor. Yuuri guessed he was speaking to himself in Russian—it sounded like a curse.

Should he knock anyway? Speak up?

No.

He turned and walked away.

#

He had been stupid. Foolish and naïve and stupid, to think someone as beautiful and gregarious as Viktor could possibly… well, Yuuri wasn’t sure what he’d envisioned for the two of them. Friends? Partners? Master and student? The fact was, for all of Viktor’s advice, Yuuri had never even seen him so much as touch a key.

Deep down, though, Yuuri knew what had really happened: Viktor had seen in him a puzzle, a kind of diversion to distract him from this tedious journey up the river. He had solved the riddle of Yuuri’s talent, and had made it his own. Yuuri, an otherwise very common boat boy, was extraneous.

Whatever it had been, it was over.

#

The biggest night in the grand salon was always the final night of their journey—the evening before the morning when they would dock and everyone would disembark in Memphis. Throughout the nine-day trip, strangers had become friends, lovers had quarreled and made up again, and a thousand and one promises had been made and broken. Perhaps most importantly, anyone who had a taste for such things had figured out where to get a little hooch.

Yuuri looked for Viktor, but he was absent even tonight. Yuuri had asked around with the other crewmembers, just to make sure something hadn’t happened to the man in gray, but they confirmed he was still well and alive. He had requested that his meals be left outside the door to his cabin.

Nevertheless, Yuuri closed his eyes, and played as if the rest of the world were gone.

The band pulled out all the stops. They knew by now which songs the passengers favored, and they played them first and with the most swing. Next was a segue into some sentimental favorites, setting the mood for fond farewells.

They broke for water and a little rest, and then, because JJ didn’t want to end on a low note, decided to try out some new pieces next, the latest from the radio. Knowing he didn’t have those memorized, Yuuri flipped through his sheet music as the band discussed the next set.

Except that, after the first page, his sheet music was gone.

In its place was a sheaf of crisp new pages, lined with staves and clefs and a flurry of penciled-in notes. Across the top of the first page, in loopy cursive, were the words _Play what you love._  
Yuuri lurched to his feet, knocking the piano bench over behind him.

Yurio and JJ, standing together in the corner, both looked at him. “You okay?” JJ asked.

Yurio rolled his eyes. “He’s got a crush. Don’t worry, it’ll be over tomorrow.”

Yuuri didn’t even blush. He barely heard what Yurio had said. He marched to the curtain, which they’d drawn during the break, and whipped it partially aside. A woman at the table directly in front of the stage let out an “oh!” of surprise. Yuuri ignored her, too. His eyes scanned the crowd for the tall, gray-haired man.

He was not there. Not in his suit, not in disguise.

Heart pounding, Yuuri let the curtain drop and returned to the piano. He righted the stool and sat, flipping quickly through the pages. But his mind was not the sort which could construct a song from the notes on the page; it all happened in his fingers. He put his foot on the left pedal and began, very slowly, to pick out the notes.

“What the hell—” Yurio began, but JJ shushed him.

It started slow. Both strange, and very—oh so very—familiar. At first Yuuri picked the notes out one by one, but two staves in and it was almost as if his fingers knew, by instinct, exactly where to go. Where the music was leading him. His foot slipped off the dampening pedal, and he no longer cared.

Dimly, he was aware of the curtain being drawn aside; by who, he didn’t know. But he couldn’t stop. Would not falter.

He plunged onward, surfacing for breath only as he turned a page. The chatter of the crowd went silent, and he didn’t know if the passengers had stopped talking or if he had only lost himself in his own mind.

It was perfect. It was midnight on the river under the stars. It was a paddle wheel, going round and round and round. It was a puff of steam scrawled on the afternoon sky.

And yet.

There was something missing. It was not quite right. What was it? How could he possibly fill it in? It was if he had only a part of a whole—

A pair of arms surrounded him, from behind. Not in a hug—two hands, Viktor’s hands, lit softly on the keys, above and below his own. They complemented the melody. Added to it. Completed it.

Yuuri understood. He could see it there, on the page, in the spaces between. Where the other notes were meant to be. He saw the whole of it, and slid to the left just as Viktor lifted his hands and seated himself on the bench, to the right. There was no break in the melody. Together, they played.

They reached the da capo, and the melody folded in upon itself, twisting and bending into something similar to what Yuuri had played alone, but expansive and new. Their hands rushed across the keyboard, one moment together and syncopated in the next. Viktor’s hands danced over Yuuri’s, crossing paths on the road of black and white, and then fell back to their place.

A crescendo—an intake of breath—and then, the end.

The grand salon erupted with applause.

Yuuri felt Viktor’s hands on his, pulling him from the bench and into a bow. “Again!” Viktor said, and they bowed together, to thunderous chants of “Bravo! Bravo!”

“It’s you,” Yuuri said, more to himself than aloud. “It’s—it’s really you.”

“Yes.” Viktor lifted Yuuri’s hand once more, smiling expansively at the crowd. “But you knew that days ago.”

“I thought—I thought you were done. With me. I thought you got what you wanted, and—”

Viktor let his hand drop. He gripped Yuuri’s shoulders, holding him out at arm’s length. “Done?” He laughed. “How else can I play such a piece? Do I have four arms?”

And Yuuri burst into hot, ugly tears.

“Oh, my beautiful boat boy.” Viktor bundled him off the stage. “Come. Come. I am sorry. Thinking only of myself. The music I wanted to write for you.”

Yuuri was vaguely aware of being herded through the salon; passengers reached out to pat their shoulders, congratulating them on a job well done. He drew in a breath when his face hit the cool night air. “But you figured it out, with the—” He gestured toward the stern. “The wheel, and…”

Viktor’s fingers—bare—brushed the nape of Yuuri’s neck, toying with a lock of his hair. “I see what you do, Yuuri, and I can write the notes, but I cannot play them as you do.” He pressed his other hand to Yuuri’s chest. “The boat is in the boy." They had come to the railing. The dark was made deeper by the lights shining in the salon. Viktor turned his back to the water, resting his elbows on the rail.  
“Do you understand, Yuuri?”

“I—I understand that you’re Viktor Nikiforov, the greatest composer—”

“Ha!” Viktor shook his head. “Yuuri, when was the last you had a new song from me?”

“Years, but I don’t have many opportunities to get sheet music out here, not unless it’s a barroom ditty or a ragtime hit.”

Viktor snorted. He turned to face the water, hooking his arm through Yuuri’s elbow. “Four years, Yuuri. Nothing. I tried everything. I traveled. I listened. I played. I wrote notes in my own blood. And still, nothing.”

All Yuuri could think to say was, “Oh.”

Viktor glanced at him, briefly, before gesturing to the water. “I ran away, Yuuri. I’ll come to America, I thought, where nobody knows my face. I’ll take my money and I’ll keep going, until Nikiforov is no more.”

Yuuri wanted nothing more than to soak up this moment: not only meeting his hero, but playing with him, inspiring him. He could hardly believe it had happened. Perhaps he was still asleep on the deck in the midday sun, fever-dreaming. All the same, he couldn’t stop himself from asking: “And… now?”

Viktor straightened, stretching in one long, luxurious motion. He looked like a satisfied cat. He drew in a deep breath and let it out again. “And now.” He raised his eyebrows. “You are asking how this story ends?”

Yuuri was almost afraid to nod.

Viktor took his hand, pulling him up the deck—to the bow this time, not the stern. The steam boat chugged ever forward, toward its destination: Memphis, on the morn. Viktor pointed to the shore, looming in the distance. “I see many endings to this story, Yuuri, but only two that I like.” He extended an index finger. “One, I stay here.” And then a second. “Two: tomorrow morning, we step off this boat. You and I.”

Yuuri’s heart stuttered. He wasn’t sure he could breathe. Was this real? Could the great Viktor Nikiforov possibly be happy, here, in his boat? His home? Yuuri could practice every day, under the tutelage of a master. Viktor could write. They could play, together. His mother would cook, they could swim. Life would be sweet. But if they left—if they left!—there was the whole world. Viktor could show him things Yuuri couldn’t even imagine he had never seen. “I—I—”

Viktor’s eyes were sparkling. “Do those endings make you happy, Yuuri?”

He could only nod.

“Good.”

“Which—which one—”

“We have until morning.” Viktor leaned close. “You tell me.”


End file.
